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> Java applets have been dead on arrival The only successful Java applet I know was Runescape (if that was an applet? it ran in browser), an RPG game that ran

> Java applets have been dead on arrival The only successful Java applet I know was Runescape (if that was an applet? it ran in browser), an RPG game that ran in Java in the browser, for 15 years or so roughly afaik, today they switched to a non browser based client instead. Other Java applets almost never worked for some reason. Like, sometimes I'd visit a website about some mathematical topic, and the whole browser would hang while some java applet demonstrating the math was supposedly loading, and then most of the time it didn't actually work.

foobarian 6y ago
The only applet I know of outside the early few years of hype that still works and does something useful is Falstad's circuit simulator. https://www.falstad.com/circuit/ https://www.falstad.com/circuit/
- Aardwolf 6y ago
  Actually that one has been rewritten in JS! The fast loading and no gray screen gives that away :D There's a link to the original Java version below, that one doesn't work for me anymore, I no longer have a java-enabled browser
  - coldtea 6y ago
    >* The fast loading and no gray screen gives that away :D* Well, plus the fact that no modern browser runs Java applets...
radiospiel 6y ago
Roughly 20 years ago we embedded Java applets inside a HTML-based online help. This turned the help from a reading resource (which tells you where to find certain preferences) into an actually interactive resource, composed from the same applets that also formed the Application itself. Worked like a charm. I have yet to see anything similar to that.
g051051 6y ago
The first "real" Java program I wrote back in 1997 was a huge applet. It was the replacement for an existing X Windows application, with 42 screens. The applet itself worked great, but the networking technology at the time was such that when all the users on a network segment started their browser and launched the applet, it bogged things down to a crawl. Still, when it was loaded it was amazing (for 1997). It looked almost exactly like the original application, and updates were as easy as putting a new jar file onto the web server.
sixstringtheory 6y ago
Don't know about "successful" or "useful", but the Java Applets on Complexification were some of the most beautiful software I've ever seen: http://www.complexification.net/gallery/ http://www.complexification.net/gallery/

foobarian 6y ago

The only applet I know of outside the early few years of hype that still works and does something useful is Falstad's circuit simulator. https://www.falstad.com/circuit/ https://www.falstad.com/circuit/

Aardwolf 6y ago
Actually that one has been rewritten in JS! The fast loading and no gray screen gives that away :D There's a link to the original Java version below, that one doesn't work for me anymore, I no longer have a java-enabled browser
- coldtea 6y ago
  >* The fast loading and no gray screen gives that away :D* Well, plus the fact that no modern browser runs Java applets...

radiospiel 6y ago

Roughly 20 years ago we embedded Java applets inside a HTML-based online help. This turned the help from a reading resource (which tells you where to find certain preferences) into an actually interactive resource, composed from the same applets that also formed the Application itself. Worked like a charm. I have yet to see anything similar to that.

g051051 6y ago

The first "real" Java program I wrote back in 1997 was a huge applet. It was the replacement for an existing X Windows application, with 42 screens. The applet itself worked great, but the networking technology at the time was such that when all the users on a network segment started their browser and launched the applet, it bogged things down to a crawl. Still, when it was loaded it was amazing (for 1997). It looked almost exactly like the original application, and updates were as easy as putting a new jar file onto the web server.

sixstringtheory 6y ago

Don't know about "successful" or "useful", but the Java Applets on Complexification were some of the most beautiful software I've ever seen: http://www.complexification.net/gallery/ http://www.complexification.net/gallery/